


the gap between agape and eros

by zvyozdochka



Series: wheeling in great broken rings [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Heartbreak, I am so sorry, Infidelity, M/M, Post-Break Up, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, i'm not kidding if you don't like angst fair warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-11-01 18:14:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10927314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zvyozdochka/pseuds/zvyozdochka
Summary: Yūko wondered if that’s what she should call this, Yūri flinging himself into quad after quad, salchow and toe loop and flip after flip after flip. There was no cohesion, no step sequences, just a few seconds of running, dashing, cutting the ice, before a flying leap and a sharp touchdown.Practice?This was not practice. This was grief. This was obsession. This was depression.





	the gap between agape and eros

> Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold
> 
> WB Yeats, 'The Second Coming'

 

They were deliriously happy, at first. 

Yūri thinks maybe that’s what threw him off. The look in Victor’s eyes when he nailed a quad flip, the gentle fingers caressing his hand, the glint of gold beautiful and constant and _something more_ and Yūri had never been one to fall quickly. It was not in his nature, his heart’s true north set, always, since the first, to Victor Nikiforov. A quick crush was all he could recall before _VictorVictorVictor_ , and Yūko had never been more than a best friend, his first friend.

There were days, endless days, skating on the same ice as his idol, then watching the glint in his eyes turn into a gleam, a quirk to a smile, and Yūri didn't fall quickly, no. But he had been falling all his life, the rink bruising his feet and his knees and his shins and his head, and throughout, Victor’s smile on his wall, the turn of his feet and the colour of his skates, all his. All Victor’s.

He fell slowly, Yūri did. 

Not so with Victor.

The first time they met, Yūri recalled, Victor had not known his name, let alone his status as a competitor. Mere weeks, and he was unabashedly naked in the Katsuki onsen, and declaring himself Yūri’s coach. A couple of days, and all of them were a blur of flirting and touching and Yūri had never been so- so overwhelmed with— he didn’t know.

(He did. He would learn to. The opening notes, a smirk, a whistle, the ice— oh yes. He would learn to.)

Yūri pushed the metal bar, felt the door swing open under his hand, the darkness of the rink beckoning. He had never felt more like skating. He had never felt less like skating.

_It wasn’t fair._

Yūri didn’t bother turning on the lights. The moon was bright, the windows long, and he couldn’t bring himself to brighten the room any more than it was.

His steps echoed, his skates clinking over his shoulder as he walked. He sat on the bench. Hard plastic. He could hardly feel it.

(He didn’t feel much of anything, these days.)

(That was a lie. He's good at those, after months of fake smiles and justifications. He spends his nights, not sleeping, but skating. He spends his days crying. He can't remember the last time he had eaten. Everything tasted like ash.)

Yūko sat in the back of the stadium seating. Her lips were pressed tight. Yūri took to the ice, and she watched as he threw himself into practice.

Yūko wondered if that’s what she should call this, Yūri flinging himself into quad after quad, salchow and toe loop and flip after flip after flip. There was no cohesion, no step sequences, just a few seconds of running, dashing, cutting the ice, before a flying leap and a sharp touchdown.

Practice? 

This was not practice. This was grief. This was obsession. This was depression.

She was worried. Yūri had not talked since Victor had left, and had not returned. He had not eaten, not properly, not regularly. The dark circles under his eyes just grew, and Yūko… Yūko, for the first time, perhaps ever, felt something violent, something dark, a cold hard ball in her gut.

Was this what it was to hate? To watch her best friend ruin himself?

She did not look away. This was her penance, for a lifetime of idolisation, and months of ignoring the shadows Yūri hid in his eyes for Victor’s smiles. For explaining to her children, her lovely three, why Victor left. Why Yūri could not play with them, why he could not dance. For all that they were clever, her three, they were young at heart. So young.

But they caught on quick, her clever three. Victor became a taboo in their house.

 

_“…Vitya?” came the hesitant whisper. Yūri clutched his phone to his chest, the cold bedroom and empty sheets that much colder._

_He lifted his hands, the screen a blur._

The Living Legend: Trouble in Paradise? _screamed the headlines._ Victor Nikiforov’s Dirty Secret? _read another._

Skating Legend a Cheat?

Nikiforov Spotted at Strip Club!

_He stopped scrolling. He didn’t need to see any more of the leaked photo, the blurry shot showing his husband’s silver hair tangled up in someone else’s hands._

_He turned off his notifications._

_He dropped his phone._

_Two hours later, and that same phone clattered against the wall, Yūri’s scream white noise._

_Two days, and Yūri left for the ice rink. He didn’t come back._

Yūri breathed in. Another quad flip. His ankles ached, and his lips twisted into something like a grin. Ice flew beneath him. He flung himself up, and waited for the crash.

 

Yurio was in Russia when Victor arrived, unshaven and with a look that read guilt, that read pleasure. A gaping mass roared at him to scream, to yell, to eviscerate Victor and to burn the coat that smelled of alcohol and sweat. But he had not skated with Victor for so long and not learned how to demolish him, wreck him utterly, without breaking a sweat.

Yurio’s voice was quiet when he asked his question.

“Are you happy with yourself, then?”

And Yurio walked out of the rink, and out of Victor’s sight, and if _Revenge_ became his theme that season- well. He was the bad boy of Russia, before agape burned that bridge with airy fluidity and a dreamy tone.

 

Yūri did not fall easily. When he did, he fell hard. This was true on and off the ice, these days, and so Yūri burned through the competitions and placed first and with each and every gold medal there was a terrible pride on his face that no one dared bring up. _Betrayal_ was his theme, and every single viewer knew what it meant when he ended his routines in a quad flip, his feet giving way and landing harsh on the ice as the music ended. Over-rotations, too much speed, not enough speed, mistimed steps, every single time, something went wrong.

The rink was silent, though, because it was the only flaw in his program. His position, his footwork, his haunted eyes and his jumps, all textbook perfect. The quad flip, he would fall. And the rink would stay silent as the judges handed him win after win because it was his _only_ flaw, these days, and Yūri would have no one at the Kiss and Cry, and Yūri would leave after the award with the medal and his terrible smile and he would leave, alone, to go and practice.

 

_They never talked, these days. At first, it was the distance. Victor would meet Yūri at competitions and there would be a flurry of conversation, a hug, Victor’s eyes wide and happy and Yūri would give him the smile meant just for Victor. They would text. They would call, sometimes. But the life of a figure skater does not lend itself to free time, and the timezone difference between Russia and Japan was no small matter. They were new, too new to each other to suggest that one move, stay, and so they tried and tried and failed._

_That was the short of it. Distance._

_Victor was not a man used to being lonely. Yūri, though. Yūri had spent his entire life alone._

_They fell apart, and Victor landed in another man’s arms, and Yūri landed, ankles aching and thighs burning, alone and cold on the ice._

 


End file.
